This year celebrates the 40th anniversary of what has become a big screen horror classic, Steven Spielberg’s Jaws. Theatres around the globe will be screening this iconic film, but you can see it first at the Ohio Theatre on Friday and Saturday, June 13 and 14!

Here are eight fun facts about Jaws that you may have never known. Enjoy!

1)“You’re gonna need a bigger boat.”[1]
The famous line, “You’re gonna need a bigger boat,” was not in the original script. It was an ad-lib by actor Roy Schneider that they decided to keep!

2) The shark rarely worked.[2]
They never tested the mechanical shark in water prior to filming, so when first placed in the ocean, it promptly sank and had to be “fished” out. This is why roughly 25% of the film is shot from the shark’s point of view, and why the shark isn’t actually seen until 1 hour and 20 minutes into the two-hour film.

3) The iconic theme song is only two notes.[3]
Composer John Williams created what is now one of the most recognizable cinema scores of all time. Spielberg didn’t originally like the score, saying it was a joke and was too simple, but has since said, “the movie would only have been half as good without it.” It was voted #6 Best Film Score of all time by the American Film Institute.

4) The beach scenes were shot in Martha’s Vineyard.[4]
Martha’s Vineyard residents were each paid $64/day to run around the beach screaming for certain shots.

5) Spielberg played clarinet in the movie.[5]
Remember the scene with the high-school marching band playing Sousa? Apparently they needed a certain level of mediocrity that only Spielberg could contribute with his minimal knowledge of the instrument.

6) “That’s some bad hat, Harry.”[6]
If you’ve ever watched shows like “Lost” or “House,” you may have heard this phrase after the credits roll. Bad Hat Harry Productions, a film and television production company that created such films as The Usual Suspects and the X-Men film series, as well as the television series “House,” was named after Chief Brody’s line to an elderly swimmer about his (pretty bad) swimming cap, “That’s some bad hat, Harry.”

7) Spielberg’s dog made a cameo![7]
Chief Brody’s dog in the film is actually played by none other than Spielberg’s dog, Elmer.

8 ) The critics loved it.[8]
Jaws won three Academy Awards for Best Film Editing, Best Original Dramatic Score, and Best Sound. It also won a Golden Globe for Best Original Score for a Motion Picture, and a Grammy for Best Original Score Written for a Motion Picture. (I bet Spielberg is glad he changed his mind about the score!) It was also voted sixth scariest film of all time by Entertainment Weekly.

by Anna Schaeffer

CAPA’S Summer Movie Series Jaws will play the Ohio Theatre on Saturday, June 13 and Sunday, June 14 at 7:30pm. To purchase tickets, click here, or call the CAPA Ticket Center at (614) 469-0939.

CAPA has received arts employment support from the Ohio Arts Council made possible by the National Endowment for the Arts through funds allocated from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.